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How to Use Your Laptop as a Wi-Fi Hotspot

Have you ever been in a situation where you have no W-Fi router, just one network cable and five people who need to use the Internet? Or may...

Have you ever been in a situation where you have no W-Fi router, just one network cable and five people who need to use the Internet? Or maybe you have a 3G dongle that works with your laptop, but leaves your Wi-Fi-only tablet offline. Sounds familiar? It would certainly be handy to share the Internet connection amongst all users and devices without a router, right?

Here are the steps to setup your Windows machine as a Wi-Fi hotspot:

1. Download
Connectify http://www.connectify.me/download/
and install it. The installation is pretty straightforward and when installation is complete, restart your computer.

2. After restarting the computer, check whether it is connected to the Internet. If it is, run the Connectify Hotspot app.

3. You’ll see two tabs in the app – Settings and Clients. In the Settings tab, under “Create a…” click Wi-Fi Hotspot.

4. Under Internet to Share, you’ll see a drop-down menu. Expand it and select the connection you want to share. We tested this app with a wired and a wireless connection and found that it worked perfectly with both.

5. Under that, you’ll see some more options. Add a Wi-Fi password. Click Start Hotspot.

That’s all you need to do. Now other devices will detect a Wi-Fi network labelled Connectify-me. Key in the password and you’re good to go.

Connectify is a paid app, but it has a stripped down free version. You can create a hotspot with the free version, but the main limitation is that it automatically disconnects every 30 minutes and shows pop-ups asking you to buy the pro version. You’ll have to re-enable the hotspot manually to start using it again.